“They aren’t enough,” the god said, his words grinding into Velixar’s skull.
“I know,” Velixar retorted through clenched teeth.
The strength he held, while great, was inadequate. He had to dive deeper into the well, find a new source of power. Placing one hand on the ground, he closed his eyes and concentrated, felt the burning heart of Dezrel buried deep beneath the soil, the fragment of Celestia herself. Who needs the Black Spire when you have the power of a god? A cackle escaped his lips as he focused on that energy, on that massive blazing mass, drawing its power up through the bedrock and into him. His eyes bulged from his head, and his skin felt on fire, so quickly did the transfer come. Outstretching both arms toward the approaching lions, he poured it into them.
The lions fell back on their haunches, bellowing. Warriors from both sides scurried away from their writhing forms. Ashhur ceased attempting to break through the shield and spun around.
Velixar looked on in wonder, feeling the inferno of Dezrel’s everlasting heart as he consumed it. That same inferno now raged in the Judges, burning them, altering them, improving them. The lions’ fur began to smoke, smoldering away in a flash of white light. The seams in their flesh split, leaking magma that melted the cobbles beneath them. The flesh itself became like stone, black and scorched like the onyx statues guarding the portcullis behind him. Men screamed. The lions’ teeth and claws became like black diamonds as they writhed.
When it was over, the smoking forms of the Judges rolled over and stood, shaking their heads like dogs shedding water. Kayne took a thunderous step forward, the blood on the cobbles boiling where his paw landed. His mane was a ring of fire. Lilah opened her maw and roared. Both lions then swiveled their heads toward Ashhur, flames raging in their eyes, their nostrils, their mouths.
“The impure god,” Kayne said, his voice like a boulder tumbling down a mountainside.
“The bringer of chaos,” added Lilah.
The fiery Judges leapt at Ashhur. The god slashed with his sword, batting the male aside, sending chunks of volcanic rock from the lion’s body where his blade struck. Lilah bounded at the deity from the other side, her jaws closing around Ashhur’s forearm. The lioness’s teeth pierced the god’s vambrace, cracking the unearthly metal. Ashhur screamed and battered the lioness with his opposite fist, sending more chunks of blackened rock flying but doing little damage to her.
Kayne pounced as Ashhur tried to free himself. The lion’s flaming maw wrapped around the god’s neck, its teeth digging in deeply. Ashhur threw his head back and screamed. Magma poured from the god’s wounds, further stoking the Judges’ fire. The deity’s glowing eyes dimmed ever so slightly. The blazing female jerked backward, shattering Ashhur’s vambrace and flinging it aside, smoking. She then bore down and lunged, her maw opened wide.
Ashhur’s fist shot out, plunging deep into the lioness’s flame-filled throat. Lilah’s burning eyes bulged, even as her jaws snapped shut, further crunching and melting the god’s armor. Ashhur’s face scrunched, and he let out a roar as he whipped his upper body around, sending the female Judge careening across the battlefield, crushing and burning those unfortunate enough to be standing in the way. The deity then raised his hand, coated in red-hot rock, and snatched Kayne by his fiery mane. He forced the lion’s head back, the teeth withdrawing from his neck. With a mighty heave, he lifted the gigantic lion up above his head and slammed it back down. The ground cracked on impact.
Velixar’s eyes widened. The energy from the heart of the world continued to flow into him uncontrollably, and he poured all he could into the Judges. The lions were on their feet a moment later, assaulting Ashhur with all they had, but the god was more than their equal. He batted away jaws, slammed his fist into their faces when they snapped at him, driving them backward. He was like a raging comet, his force not to be withstood. Velixar couldn’t understand where he found the strength. He looked about him, where the battle had once raged. It raged no more. Combatants from both sides simply stood there, gawking at the clash of god and ungodly beasts. The Wardens who still lived, as well as half of the human soldiers, were kneeling, looking up at Ashhur with pleading reverence in their eyes. Everyone was coated with blood, making it impossible to tell whose side they’d fought on.
“No!” shouted Velixar, turning just in time to see Kayne leap at Ashhur. The deity ducked out of the way and slashed upward with his sword. Kayne’s momentum carried him directly into the blade, slicing him from nose to rear. The two halves of the flaming lion soared through the air, and when they landed, both halves exploded into chunks of smoking, molten rock.
The lion’s mate let out a rumbling howl of despair and charged as well. Ashhur plunged his fist into the lioness’s snout, driving her maw into the ground. Then he sidestepped and brought his glowing blade down on her neck, splitting through the solid stone and roiling molten rock. The gaps in Lilah’s stony flesh ceased to glow, smoke rising instead. Ashhur grabbed the beast’s severed head by the ear and lifted it. He turned to Velixar, showing the head to him before tossing it aside.
From all around the god came a chorus of gasps, cheers, and prayers.
With the Judges gone, the power that forged them had nowhere to go but back to its originator. It slammed into Velixar, the combined energies churning, boiling over. He fell to his knees as Ashhur stormed toward him. His shadowy, protective sphere dissolved. Smoke billowed from Velixar’s throat when he tried to speak. He tried to form runes with his fingers, but his flesh bulged and rippled. He screamed in pain as the pendant on his chest burned through his ribcage.
“It. . cannot. . be,” he gasped.
“Indeed it can.”
Ashhur snatched him up by the front of his cloak, lifting him into the air. Velixar felt no fear of the god; he was too fearful of what was happing inside him to worry about much else. He felt his flesh expand, his blood boil, his bones begin to shatter under the massive weight of all that he’d swallowed.
The deity lugged him off the slate walk while awestruck onlookers gaped. Velixar couldn’t blink, couldn’t move, couldn’t defend himself; it was like he was filled with a raging star that pressed against his limits, ready to explode. He felt impossibly stiff. Almost gently, Ashhur set Velixar’s two feet on the ground and stood before him, glowing sword in hand, shaking his head. Velixar glanced above the deity. He was now facing the Castle of the Lion, its three towers rising above the wall and into the afternoon sky like stone fingers.
“This. . should never. . have happened,” he murmured, looking up at Ashhur. “The soul. . is limitless. . so said. . the demon. . ”
Ashhur shook his head. “The mortal body is not.” He almost sounded compassionate. “Never listen to a demon. They lie.”
The god stepped backward and swung his radiant sword. The blade cut through the man’s shoulder, sliced down through his ribcage, and stopped upon hitting his spine. A rush of white-hot pain surged through him. All of the energy Velixar had absorbed came rushing out of him in a giant shaft of translucent fire. People screamed and fled. Ribbons of heat curled around the entirety of Velixar’s being. The beam of energy slammed into the wall around the castle, instantly disintegrating the bodies that hung there. The wall then detonated, crumbing, the heavy stones toppling one after another. The beam continued on its way, growing ever larger as it punched through the bottom of the three towers. The sound of crunching rock filled the air as the towers wavered, falling against one another, losing form as they collapsed, stone by stone, brick by brick, with a sound like an avalanche. The beam continued on, pulverizing the opposite side of the wall.
And then it was over. Velixar fell, his innards spilling over the cobbles, adding to the gore. The castle and its wall kept crumbling while Ashhur stood over him, a look of triumph on his godly face.